Instagram: Skype feedback session

Linzi, Dirk, Eli, Stuart and me having a chat about our blog feedback.

Our own community participation. #mscedc March 03, 2017 at 07:48AM
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As the Community Cultures Block is ending I’ve been reflecting on how communities are formed. This picture reminded me that there are sub-communities within communities. I wonder how these sub-communities support or detract from the wider community.

Comment on Eli Appleby-Donald’s blog: A little bit of chat, a little bit of community building by cpsaros

Hi both,

I’m so pleased to be learning some Scottish slang. I definitely want to learn more! Maybe we could have a word of the week. 😉

Some really interesting points made about students with different needs. I think we are so focused in face-to-face education with meeting students’ needs, I was wondering how this is translated into the educational spaces in MOOCs. Is this something those educators should take into consideration, or should they run the course they want to and allow the participants to meet their own needs? What happens if those participants don’t really know what it is that they need because they don’t have the experience? It’s definitely given me something to think about.

I think having a Skype chat as a regular thing is a great idea. Good idea to set a topic, maybe give someone the job as moderator so we don’t speak over each other (something I was conscious of doing because I was so excited to chat to you guys!) Can’t wait for next time.

from Comments for Eli’s EDC blog http://ift.tt/2m2tQHo
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Connections

This week has been such fun! I have connected with so many different people on the course in such a variety of ways. See if you can match the images below  with whom I interacted. Each picture is a snippet of Anne’s, Stuart’s, Linzi’s and Eli’s lives that I wouldn’t necessarily have found out about had we stayed in the ‘educational spaces’ of EDC.

It started out with Stuart; we had a productive Skype chat to compare notes about what we had found doing the same MOOC. It was interesting see how he approached things so differently to how I did. As we chatted I noticed that the conversation changed from the academic to something much more like the banter that exists with my colleagues at work.

I had an interesting tweet exchange with Eli which made me question whether MOOCs are still massive and thanks to connecting with Stuart I know how massive the Internet of Things MOOC actually is.

Linzi proposed a Skype chat on Twitter, which Eli, Stuart and I signed up for. This gave us an opportunity to catch up in a less formal environment than we have before. We were able to compare notes about our musings on Education and Digital Culture and the MOOCs we are doing. Conversation flowed much more easily than it did in the Hangout tutorial, I think we agreed that it is more stilted in the Hangout because we are self-conscious of making a mistake in front of everyone and looking unprepared or silly. We could relax more. It was good to hear that others also felt ‘naked’, or rather awkward and embarrassed, about having their assessed work and feedback available for all to see.

Anne and I had a chat on our WhatsApp group while we were reading the comments of our MOOC together. This was so helpful and caused us to pick out exact exchanges that have been useful when formulating our ideas. Anne also found a WhatsApp MOOC group for two-hundred-and-fifty students on IoT.

It seems these secret groups are a thing in MOOCs, as Eli shared that she was invited to join a ‘secret’ Facebook group. I thought having a WhatsApp group was intriguing as I would classify this as private space. Anne and I continued our discussion via a WhatsApp phone call on Friday, providing support and chatter about our plans for our studies.